Welcome to Brasa

Brasa is an engine for making 2D games. You build the levels by dragging objects in a visual editor, write the behavior of each object in C++ and press Play to play.

It was made for beginners: the editor takes care of the boring part (compiling, opening the window, loading images and sounds), and you focus on the game.

The editor is in Portuguese

For now, the Brasa editor and installer only exist in Brazilian Portuguese. In these pages, the names of buttons, panels and menus appear exactly as they are on screen, in bold, with the meaning in parentheses when it helps: for example, the Recursos (Resources) panel.

What you can do

• 2D pixel art games, such as platformers, shooters, mazes and puzzles.
• Build levels by dragging objects onto the screen.
• Import PNG images, slice them into frames and animate them.
• Play sound effects in WAV.
• Make the camera follow the player, without writing code.

What you need

• A computer with Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit).
• Basic programming notions: knowing what a variable, an if and a function are. You will use only a little C++, and the page C++ for Brasa explains everything that shows up in the tutorial.

How Brasa works

1. Objects. Each thing in the game is an object: the ship, the enemy, the shot, the scoreboard.
2. Room. The room is a level. You drag objects into it in the editor.
3. Code. Each object has a .cpp file that says what it does: move, shoot, explode.
4. Play. The editor saves everything, compiles your code and opens the game in a window.

Words you will see

Word	What it is
Object	A kind of thing in the game, such as “Enemy”. It is the mold.
Instance	A copy of an object placed in the game. Three enemies on screen are three instances of the object Enemy.
Sprite	The image of an object. It can have several frames to make an animation.
Room	A level or screen of the game: the menu, level 1, the Game Over.
Event	A moment when Brasa calls your code, such as “when the object is created” or “on every step”.
Step	One turn of the game. Brasa runs 60 steps per second, and on each one every object updates.

Where to go now

• Installation: install Brasa on your computer.
• Getting to know the editor: a tour of the parts of the editor.
• Your first game: make a complete spaceship game, step by step.